What to do when the CEO doesn’t want to hire a bookkeeper?

Over the last 6 months, we have missed rent, missed billing customers, and missed paying all sorts of other things, including people. He refuses to hire a bookkeeper. Several other employees have approaches him as well, with similar results.

Answer

Not sure how big the company is, but this might be a sign that more than a book-keeper is the problem. There are a lot of startups that don’t hire an office manager, a do-everything administrative generalist who can everything from HR to finding a new office to accounting to payroll to scheduling, and more. This is a great job for someone non-technical who wants to get into a startup, they get to work directly for the CEO and see how the entire operation runs. If your CEO isn’t doing this stuff then he/she needs to find someone else who is reliable who can. Missing paying the people on your team is the last straw, and people will quit over it.

Reputation is everything, and getting a reputation for not being good on your word of paying for things travels fast and will impact all the company’s business dealings. If the CEO doesn’t see the severity I would also be very concerned that they are simply not mature/reliable/responsible enough to receive further investment etc.

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Experienced angel investor, invests in an average of 5 companies per year. Current founder and YCombinator alum.

Comments

This is a sign the CEO is not understanding value, which is his/her main job. If the CEO is not going to change the way things have been done, the results will not change. It will basically boil down to: does the CEO need to relinquish control to a better manager or does the staff need to find something else, quickly. The work harder and not smarter mentality is prevalent in far too many businesses and in my anonymous opinion, it’s a big reason why businesses fail.

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